As a loud thump resounded through the room, the creature gnawing on an old pitted bone covered in bite marks in a corner raised its head. It was a man-sized demon but looked utterly malnourished with sunken cheeks and protruding ribs. Skin that used to be bright crimson looked faded and bleached like it had been left too long to hang in the sun. This wasn't the case a few decades, or was it centuries, earlier. In its prime, it used to be twice the size of an average human, with bulging muscle and a barrel of a torso. But that was a long time ago before it was forced to cannibalize its own flesh to survive, first shrinking in size and then in muscle and fat. The bone in its hands was long bereft of any nutrients, the marrow sucked out with not a bit left, as were all the others strewn around the room, with a single notable exception lying in the opposite corner. Soon it would have to start consuming its organs and then it would die. A cruel end for a once great warrior.
The demon first looked at a foot-shaped depression in the floor where one of the dead strewn around the room trapped the demon in flowing stone, trapping it and preventing it from leaving, a sad and wistful look forming upon its gruesome face. It would have been able to break the doors down if it could have reached them then. But by the time it shrunk down to the size when escape was viable, it was too weak to hammer them open and was able to put only the slightest of dents in the steel reinforced doors. The high priest’s inner chambers became its tomb to be.
And yet, it seemed that the creature's imprisonment would soon come to an end, one way or the other.
As a second thump sounded outside a tense silence spread through the sanctum. A sharp piece of bone found its way to the demon’s hand as it braced for a fight, a mad rush for sustenance and freedom, its reasoning shriveling to focus on that lonesome goal. Food or death, like for so many others before. After a muffled exchange of words came a soft click and a cvak and then the handle on the door began to turn slowly, ever so slowly. The person doing the turning exhibiting utmost caution.
Pjotr stuck half of his face through and after quickly scanning the room shut the door closed. “There’s just a puny one inside. No more than a pile of rattly bones in a skin sack. What’s up with that? I thought you said there should be the biggest bugger yet,” he addressed his companions. Clad in heavy plate armor with a pair of blessing scrolls stuck to one of his pauldrons, armed with a mace and kite shield, he raised his visor to take a swig from a water skin after locking the doors behind him. The paladin stepped over the pair of dead demons lying on the floor and took a wet rag from Helena to wipe a smear of black blood that has found a path onto his face. Who knew what diseases it might carry?
Taking the cloth back when he was finished, the diminutive warrior-priest pointedly looked between the piece of cloth and his face several times before theatrically sighing and reaching up to wipe an errant splotch he missed. She was wearing a crimson brigandine with orange symbols stitched at predetermined spots acting as a blessing of their own in sorts. She removed her mail coif to run a hand through her shoulder-length brown hair as she spoke. "Yep, s'possed t’ be a biggun. The chronicle spoke o’ a fo’r meter on’. An ‘ig, scary, spell-slingin’ bugger of a beast. Ya scared yet or should I keep goin’?” Helena turned her back on him before he got the chance to respond and hollered towards their captain. “Oi, chief! Pjotr’s a li’l puddle o’ fright, want me t’ ‘ake point? Maybe I could finally try sticking ten scrolls on and see if it works. They tell us not to do so, but no one was able to tell me why. Hey, Stue, want to bet it works?” Her over-done accent failed her midspeech as she started fishing in her satchel for spare blessing scrolls and plastering them all over her chest.
A big armored hand stopped her before she got more than three on herself and she looked up with sad puppy eyes to Perceval, their leader. "Can't you drop the act for gods' sake, Helena? At least for a single minute? The army isn’t bleeding to buy us this change just for you to squander it with your antics. I know you’re good, but enough is enough. Focus woman!” He released her hand after she nodded with a mumbled fine and turned to Pjotr. “Just the one? Nothing else of note?”
"No sir, just a malnourished looking one. If it was smaller I would say it's an imp, not a demon. It's the only thing in there apart from a pile of bones. Had one of them in hand and looked ready to poke my eye out with it,” he threw a look at Helena. “No ‘biggun’ to be seen anywhere.”
“Spoilsport,” she mumbled before adding, “what about the book? Did you see it?”
“One relatively intact skeleton had one similar to the tome’s description in hand in the opposite corner of the room from the demon. His clothing was in tatters, but it looked like it might be the high priest’s. ”
“Good, but let’s not take any chances. Pjotr, Jehen, you two take point, I’ll go behind with Helena. Stuart, you and Anden cover our rear. Come help if we need it. If things go sideways, protect Helena as long as you can. And you,” he pointed to the priest in question, “you’ll do a snatch and grab and run to the army. No looking back, just leave us.” She looked at him for a long second before nodding and shaking herself ready. After a chorus of ayes, they stepped into formation and entered the room in tandem.
Loud screeching tore out of the demon's throat as it raised the bone it was desperately clutching above its head and charged the two shields that finally appeared in the doorway. The only way out was that way and the creature would take the proffered opportunity no matter the cost, it could get away at last. No, it needed to get out. Its wild sprint ended at the point of a sword. The demon dumbly lowered its head to look at the piece of steel protruding from its back. As it looked forward a mace head descended to cave the creature’s dome in. It slid from the sword to the ground and twitched thrice before stilling with a demented smile. Free at last
“Was that it?” asked Helena as she peeked from behind a shield and scanned the chamber.
“Ehm... looks like it,” answered Jehen as he looked around himself warily.
They spread out in front of the door and waited for the other shoe to drop. Yet it never did. Not even after good five minutes did anything happen.
“Oi’m goin’ fer it! Ye stei an’ doi fer me, ye sacks of martyrdom!" shouted Helena as she charged for the corner of the room where they could see the object of interest. Both her arms and legs shot forward in front of her with residual momentum as her body was stopped in place by the captain's hand. She refused to get her feet under her when he released her and simply flopped to the ground and started dying theatrically "Zey gots me, oi’m doin’ ‘ere. Ye go on without meh. Bleurgh. Oi’ve a ... crap what’s it called, ah! Oi’ve the faith in ye, ya can dew it. Sad dying noises.” After she ‘died’, she peeked from behind her elbow a few times to see their reaction.
“Did she really say ‘sad dying noises’? That’s a new low; even for her.” chuckled Anded from behind the primary group. With that, the tension broke and they had no choice but laugh at Helena’s fit of the giggles that bordered on a horse’s neighing.
After getting a hold of herself, she went and picked up the book in the corner. Helena flipped through the pages for a moment until she landed on the one they were hoping to find. “Yep, this be it. We got it, hoss. We can get the army and bugger off.”
Perceval didn’t stop scowling her way the whole time. The woman was going to be the death of him, and he did not hesitate to tell her. Right then and there. She winked at him and smacked his shoulder as she passed him by. “That’s why you married me, you big oaf.”
Aye, that I did. “And I regret it every day since.”
She turned around to pat his face with a chortle. “Aww, silly. Of course you don’t.”
Aye, that I don’t.
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***
Regrouping with the rest of the troops took no time at all and soon they were in the middle of a fighting retreat from the former seat of the church. Half an hour later they left the remnants of human habitation behind and turned their sight onto the path back home.
The small town that sprang around the shrines and cathedrals was overrun some three centuries earlier and a vast amount of religious texts was lost with it. As was the one Helena was sifting through in the back of a cart. This was one of the largest expeditions into the quarantine zone in recent history. And yet not even a single demon slain would make a difference, not in the long run.
There used to be more excursions into the demon-infested area in hope of reclaiming what was once lost, be it land or otherwise. These days, there just wasn't enough skilled manpower for that, mages especially if humanity wanted to keep its gains. Magic would have been essential to set up barriers before mundane stone walls could be built and manned. Not that the knowledge of such large-scale magic remained in human hands.
All the remnants could do was man their walls and repel demons one assault after another. Time and time again.
Helena closed the book and patted its cover, looking on as the column passed through the ruins of the First Wall. The initial one humanity built at the beginning of the outbreak, paid for with the blood of many a good man and a good portion of their mages. It did not last, but it did accomplish its task of buying yet more time for a second one to be built. The First Wall lasted fifty years, more than anyone could have hoped for, before being breached. Now it lay broken, only the occasional section remaining as it once stood. Yet it stood as a testament to human perseverance. Broken into ruin and yet standing tall.
“Behemoth!” A shout broke the thoughtful priest from her reveries. Helena looked up and saw a small group of demons and imps making their way to the column, a big hulking brute of a creature at the tip of the proverbial spear.
That was all it took. Soon the horses and wagons were brought into more defensible positions and the few mages that accompanied them took up positions by the archers. It had to be brought down before it reached the infantry line or the casualties would be many. The demon was a giant beast, easily six meters tall, chest wide, and with wicked horns adorning its bald, lipless, noseless head.
The first spells flew before a couple of ballista bolts joined them from the few cart-mounted giant bows the caravan had. Two ice spears deflected off the demon's chest before one frozen lance sunk into its shoulder followed by a strike into its thigh, knocking it off balance and slowing it down. A cloud of arrows pinged off its thick hide with only ones and twos sticking here and there without affecting it whatsoever. The second volley made it bellow in anger as a crossbow bolt took out one of the behemoth's eyes. Still, it had three more. It got within a couple dozen meters of the line of soldiers before a ballista bolt shattered a knee causing its gait to fail and dumping the brute to the ground where it slid on its face on momentum alone. Another volley of spells and steel-tipped wood descended on the demon before it could get a hand below itself. It was too late for the behemoth once it managed to do so, its muscles slackened as a siege engine team pierced its head and its lifeless body thumped back to the ground.
A quick whoop resounded from the soldiers before they had to brace for the incoming group of smaller demons and imps. This time only arrows flew as the mages preferred to conserve their strength and the siege engines their ammunition. The troops suffered only a single, shallow cut before the enemy was dispatched.
Young squires and support personnel with nothing else to do sprung forward to collect as many arrows and bolts as they could, even if many of the smaller missiles and most of the large ones were broken and unusable. The steel tips could be straightened and reused once they got home at least. The soldiers accompanied them and finished off any demon that yet lived and searched them for anything that could be used. A tome here, a dagger or a small coin pouch there, everything the demons scavenged from the abandoned buildings in the quarantine zone and held onto like a drowning man held onto a strand of straw. Even unto death, many a time caused by fights among themselves for said items. It was usually just commonplace junk, but sometimes one could find the lone treasure and people quickly learned to search for those. Magical knowledge in particular was in short supply these days. Any and every text would be collected upon return, but the more mundane things would stay with those who found them, enriching their coin purses. At least a little.
***
Perceval stood with his army counterpart and watched the efforts of the ballista team that brought the behemoth to the ground in turning it onto its back. He was not the first to speak though.
"My best crew, those. Fifth time they made a shot like this this outing. Damn fine lads, Percy. Looks like the return will be a bit easier than the journey here.”
"It tends to be," the paladin captain agreed. “Even so, this seems like a bit too calm a week.”
The men spent six days of cautious advance into the heartland of the quarantine zone and one day of traveling back with half a day of fighting their way through the faith-town. All in all about two weeks there and back again, not that long of an expedition by any means. It was tiring nevertheless, even if the group encountered half the number of hostile creatures than they expected.
“I have to agree. Something’s afoot, might be another push. Just hope not in the east, they had several just days before we set out. Would be putting too much strain on the lads to repel another one so soon,” the army man said as he looked in that direction with clouded eyes before turning back the way the column was headed. “Or south for that matter. I don’t want to have to fight my way through a horde.”
“You took the words right out of my mouth,” Perceval responded as he headed off, leaving the man to do his job.
He went to the cart his wife sat on, poring over the tome they retrieved. “Found anything interesting in there yet?”
She looked up at him before shutting the book with a thump. "All sorts of things, but I suspect you have one in mind. It is in there, that is clear. All titled in big fancy letters. But the how to do it just has to be hidden in all sorts of lovey dovey, religiousy, prayery mumbo jumbo. Quite infuriating, if you ask me. Couldn’t they have just written: draw runes, get virgin maiden, slit said’s throat, say ‘unga bunga, oh great gods, kiribatsh kiribatsh,’ finished; and be done with it?” The woman punctuated each item of her imaginary list with a mocking voice and by dramatically tilting her head from side to side.
“Does it really say to sacrifice a girl? And ‘religious mumbo jumbo’? Aren’t you supposed to be a priest or something, Helena?” Perceval raised a brow. He knew his wife and her rants, but this seemed rather unlike her. Something ate at her and he wasn’t sure what.
"Well, it is precisely because I am a priest that I can say that. But don’t let me catch you spouting that in a church, or in front of clergy, or anywhere else, really. And no, no live sacrifices, or dead ones for that matter. 'Least far I can tell. It just all seems so convoluted and twisted beyond reason, the wording and descriptions I mean. Parts of it don’t make sense to me and the rest I can’t even read.”
“How so?”
“It’s in old Merenese and I was never much of a scholar. It’s only the parts that overlap with prayers and sermons that I can translate." Helena's face twisted into a scowl. "I just hope this wasn't a wasted venture." Perceval simply walked beside the wagon as her face went through several emotions before settling on a deep-rooted sadness that seemed to find its way onto her face more often these days. "Hope, huh? Do we even notice when we lose hope, or does it just peter out without us finding out until it is all gone? Percy," she finally raised her head to look at him and he jumped into the back of the vehicle to place a hand around her shoulders and brought her into a tight hug. “I just... I... I find myself hoping less and less, you know? There seems to be so much to find joy in. And yet...” A sob rocked her shoulders. “I hate it, always living in their shadow. Always looming above us, threatening to end us all in one unsuccessful defense. One breach we can’t shore up. And yet we have to smile for the people, tell them all is good.”
It tore his heart apart to see her like this, so far from her usual jovial self. But there was nothing he could say to alleviate her fears, for all she said was true. Not today and not tomorrow, but in their lifetime or that of their children, they would see the wall breached and the demons pouring into human cities. Not just Meren, but all the neighboring countries that supported them as well, were slowly running out of resources. People were tired and manpower was slow to replenish.
Worst of all was the growing lack of mages. It took some time to train one up and most of the truly skilled ones were lost early in the war, trying to buy time for the First Wall to be finished. And with every new death, just a little more of the arcane knowledge was lost until apprentices were trained on the job, maintaining the last few pieces of arcane equipment they still knew how and helping with defending humanity's bastion or on expeditions like this. Everyone with the tiniest amount of aptitude was conscripted, man, woman, or child, yet it was not enough. Never enough. That initial loss of masters most probably spelled their doom as quality was replaced with not much quantity. Without magic, most industrial technology fell into disrepair and had to be reinvented using more primitive, mundane methods. Crops had lower yields, animals less offspring, and rivers flooded farmlands where they previously did not. But most importantly, people died more often. To illnesses and injuries that might have been easily treated otherwise.
All were needed to man the walls, soldier, priest, and mage alike, leaving few left to tinker and invent as they were pressed into service.
But the book Helena clutched to her chest like a lifeline might reverse all that. It might be their only remaining chance to come out ahead of the demon horde.
Before the last hope left them, drifting by on the current of time. Unnoticed by most.